A 72-year-old Italian priest, Giuseppe Berardelli, gave up his respirator to a younger patient he didn’t know.
According to a Vatican consultant, concerned parishioners bought him the respirator after he suffered from severe symptoms of coronavirus. However, seeing that the young patient was struggling to breathe, he gave it up.
James Martin SJ, who is an Editor at America Magazine broke the touching story to the world.
Fr. Giuseppe Berardelli, a 72-year-old priest who gave a respirator (that his parishioners had purchased for him), to a younger patient (whom he did not know), has died from coronavirus. ‘Greater love has no person…’ (Jn 15:13),” James Martin, SJ wrote.
“He is a “Martyr of Charity,” a saint like St. Maximilian Kolbe, who in Auschwitz volunteered to take the place of a condemned man with a family, and was killed.
“Don Giuseppe Berardelli, patron of those who suffer from coronavirus and all who care for them, pray for us!,” he added.
The late Guiseppe Barardelli was from Casigno in Italy’s hardest-hit Lombardy region. He died in a local hospital just a few days after contracting the deadly bug. Meanwhile, local media reports revealed that he had serious underlying health conditions.
According to the DailyMail, at least 60 priests have now died from coronavirus in Italy, which is currently the worst-hit country in the world.
